Russell Pearce recall: State's high court to consider appeal

The Arizona Supreme Court will decide whether the Nov. 8 recall election for Senate President Russell Pearce will go forward.

The high court on Wednesday agreed to consider the appeal in the case challenging the recall signatures.

Both sides had requested the hearing in hopes of speeding up the process instead of allowing the Arizona Court of Appeals to consider it first.

Time is of the essence. A decision needs to be made by Sept. 23, when the state has to begin printing ballots.

The Supreme Court said that it will not hear oral arguments and that the justices will make a decision behind closed doors on Sept. 13. They will base their decision on written arguments.

Gov. Jan Brewer in July called the election in Mesa's Legislative District 18 after Maricopa County elections officials certified that 10,365 of the 16,949 signatures submitted by Citizens for a Better Arizona were valid. The group needed at least 7,756 for the recall to qualify for the ballot.

Recall supporters have said they do not believe Pearce reflects the goals of District 18. They said residents want to see their leaders bring more jobs and improve education and health care, not push more legislation on illegal-immigration enforcement and loosening gun restrictions, as Pearce has done.

Pearce's attorney, Lisa Hauser, filed a lawsuit challenging the petitions on behalf of a Pearce supporter in the district. Last month, county Superior Court Judge Hugh Hegyi denied that legal challenge.

Hauser appealed. If she can get more than 2,609 of the 10,365 certified signatures thrown out, the election will be canceled.

If she cannot, the state will see the first recall election of a state lawmaker in Arizona history.

Hauser's legal challenge seeks to throw out all the signatures.

She alleges several problems, including that none of the petition forms complied with state requirements that a petition gatherer sign an oath that the signatures are "genuine" and that the recall statement was misleading and did not clearly explain that signing the petition would support a recall election.

Both sides in the case agreed that the Supreme Court is a more appropriate venue than the appeals court.

Some of the legal assertions could be at odds with prior state Supreme Court rulings, and the lower courts do not have the authority to overturn higher-court precedents.

"From our standpoint, the Court of Appeals was going to be largely a waste of time," Hauser said.

"There were too many opportunities for the same thing to happen as it did with the trial-court judge, where he said, 'That's outside my scope.' "

Attorney Thomas Ryan, who represents the recall group, agreed.

"We want this resolved prior to the printing of the ballots," he said. "And these are very important (state) constitutional issues."

Hauser said she was a bit surprised by the court's decision not to allow oral arguments and thought allowing arguments would have helped the judges in this case.

Ryan said the decision tells him that the court sees the case as "a pure matter of law."

"Nobody can assume one way or another from that which way the Supreme Court will go," he said. "But I am supremely confident that the Arizona Supreme Court will uphold the decision of Judge Hegyi."

Candidates interested in running against Pearce in the election have until Sept. 9 to collect the 621 signatures required to qualify for the ballot and submit them to the Secretary of State's Office.

Mesa Republican Jerry Lewis has turned in the required signatures. Republican Olivia Cortes and Libertarian Michael Kielsky have filed paperwork to begin collecting signatures but have not yet turned them in.